Remembering...
Immortal Beloved
Immortal Beloved
British film based on
Directed by Bernard Rose
Isabella Rosellini and Johanna ter Steege
Released December 1994
by Live Music Head
To think there really was a love letter
written by Ludwig van Beethoven,
left
behind for her,
a
woman shrouded in mystery...
heavy,
heavy sigh.
A period film set at the end of the eighteenth century,
in
the age of Romanticism is gorgeous to watch,
especially
in the early part,
when
the women are dressed in lovely
silky,
sheer and sexy fabrics,
completely
free of the tight corsets that came later.
I
particularly liked the dress
that Giulietta (Valeria Golino) wore,
billowing
out from behind her
as she raced up the staircase
to
see the German pianist (Gary Oldman) perform.
But
the Austrian countess doesn’t find
the composer
at the piano.
Instead
she finds him sitting alone in another room,
set
snobbishly apart from the other musicians
who
he considers beneath him.
Giulietta
didn’t realize it was the maestro himself
and
laughed him off when he told her
he
would come calling the next day
as her new piano teacher.
Flushed
and speechless was she
when Beethoven did come calling.
And
then of course, she fell in love with him.
Many
women did apparently.
Had
I been part of that world,
I’m certain I would have fallen in love
with Ludwig van Beethoven myself.
But
I couldn’t have tolerated his cruelty,
despite
understanding from whence it came.
My
heart broke watching the scene where
he thought he was alone with
his deep dark secret,
playing
Moonlight Sonata
with his ear pressed to the piano top.
And
when Anna-Marie,
one of his other lovers (Isabella Rossellini)
comes to his rescue...
watching
her watch him as he struggles
to lead the orchestra and fails;
watching
her watch him as the performance falls apart
in
front of an unforgiving audience,
devoid of compassion...
is
completely heartbreaking.
For
Beethoven not to be able to hear his own music
must’ve been torture.
But
the tortured genius that he was,
continued
to compose, conduct and perform, regardless.
It
seems he couldn’t, or wouldn’t accept
he was going deaf.
he was going deaf.
But
of his beloved,
the one his feelings ran so deep for,
and
turned oh-so cruel,
the
music reflects the passion.
Beethoven
explained to Schindler (Jeroen Krabbe)
his assistant and biographer,
that it all went wrong for she would only wait so long.
And
the sound heard was the sound of his agitation.
But
there was much more than the agitation of losing her
that
tormented Ludwig van Beethoven.
Going
back to the earliest days of his life,
it's
been documented he was abused as a boy,
beaten
by his drunken father.
Deep
emotional hurts manifest in the physical.
The trailer for Immortal Beloved...
